


Undertow

by echoist



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Jealousy, M/M, Scent Marking, first time make-outs, forced vacations, in which Stiles is actually monster-bait, really creepy mermaids, spinster aunts, wayward were-fish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoist/pseuds/echoist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Stiles spent his summer vacation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Undertow

 

 

Well, Stiles thought on the drive home. That was officially the worst vacation ever. He'd thought he was going to visit his Aunt Agatha in Oregon for a nice, relaxing break from the supernatural hijinks that had invaded his life ever since his best friend had sprouted a set of claws and started howling at the moon. But because this was _his_ life, of course, nothing could ever be that simple.

Was he a magnet, now, for the inexplicable? Was there a giant 'eat me' sign taped to his back, legible only to monsters? Was he doomed to be ridiculous human cannon fodder in other people's wars for the rest of his (very probably) short life?

He sighed, pulling up to the darkened driveway. The fact that he'd seriously considered driving out to the newly renovated Hale house before even stopping to unpack or see his dad made him question what was left of his sanity. Scott still lived at home, most of the time, when he and his mom weren't on the outs over the whole lycanthropy business, but Isaac had nowhere else to go and even Jackson, Erica and Boyd had taken to spending more time there than they ever had in the rail station. Go figure. The more people – and he used that term loosely - you have rebuilding a house, the faster it goes. Before he'd left, they'd even been talking about adding on a sunroom in the back. A sunroom. For snoozy pack naps.

But right now? The only thing Stiles wanted after the four hour drive from Beaver Lick - and seriously, yes, Aunt Agatha lived in Beaver Lick, Oregon, just up the Coastal Highway from Brookings and you would not believe the amount of shit he had taken for that as a kid every time she came to visit. Anyhow, all he wanted from the rest of the night was a hot shower, a change of clothes and the comfort of his own bed. Assuming he could actually get any rest, after – well. After. He could still smell the salt rising from his skin, and no amount of air through the Jeep's windows had managed to clear it from his senses.

“Hey, kiddo!” his dad yelled when he stumbled through the front door, his voice coming from the kitchen where he was cooking something that smelled absolutely delicious. Stiles abruptly realised he was famished, and wondered how long it had been since he'd thrown away the tuna sandwiches Agatha packed and stopped for a burger instead. Just the thought of eating anything that had once had scales and swum in the sea gave him shivers, even now. Completely justifiable shivers, he might add, had anyone asked.

“You're home earlier than I expected,” his father continued as Stiles shrugged off his duffel bag and wandered into the kitchen, following his nose.

“Yeah, well, you know,” Stiles deflected, scratching his head. “I've got school starting soon, and as it turned out I left some of my required reading at home. Never too early to get a head start, right?” He bit his lip and looked up to meet his father's questioning gaze, silently begging him not to ask. The Sheriff gave him that wry half-grin that translated to acceptance of whatever had just come out of Stiles' mouth, and drew him in for a one armed hug instead.

“I'm making a salmon fry, you want me to put another steak on for you?” he asked innocuously.

Stiles forced down his gag reflex and shook his head, grabbing for his bag and charging for the stairs. “No thanks,” he called back. “I got burgers on the way. I think – I think I'm just going to get some sleep. Long drive. Very tired.”

His father laughed quietly to himself, thankful to have the house back to normal even it meant dishing up dinner for one.

 

Stiles woke up sweating and gasping for air, too tangled in his sheets to move. When he'd sorted himself out, he glanced at the clock. Three a.m. Well, that was just perfect. He'd never get back to sleep now. Oh well, Stiles thought as he threw back the covers, at least he'd managed to get  _some_ rest, despite the persistent nagging fear crawling down his spine.

In his dreams, he'd been tossed about on the rocky coastline, searching for something, anything to hold onto. A hand had reached out from an outcropping and pulled him up just before his last breath expired, sour in his mouth, and he'd held on for dear life. When he climbed to the top of the granite shelf, however, his savior revealed a familiar, cavernous face, gaping maw amply stocked with row after row of narrow teeth. His fingers tangled in stringy, seaweed hair from which a cavalcade of tiny crabs spilled forth like an army. They skittered along his arms, pinching and biting with savage intent. She'd hauled him in closer, inch by inch, over jagged rocks and encrusted barnacles, ripping his flesh and leaking torrents of blood into the water.

He'd woken still unable to breathe, unable to rid his mind of that last, terrible image. Stiles supposed that really, he should let his be a warning to him about going in search of summer romance. Although, technically, Amy was the one who sought  _him_ out on his third day of vacation, plopping down next to him on the beach and scattering sand all through the pages of his book. She'd had long black hair that shone nearly greenish blue in direct sunlight, tangled up in that sort of gravity-defying knot all girls seemed to know how to manage from birth. His mother had worn her hair like that when she was too busy to bother fussing with it, but hers had been brown and never reminded him of cormorant feathers and super hot punk girls all at the same time. Amy had sun-crisped skin and freckles and a cute, upturned nose and she made him smile, despite losing his place in The Great Gatsby. She'd struck up a conversation; she was new in town, just moved down from Willapa Bay, actually, and did he live here? Would she see him in school?

When he explained that he was just visiting, her smile grew wider, and really, Stiles thought, that should have clued him in. Whether wild beast or serial killer, predators always sought out the weakest members of the herd, the sickly, the lame, the ones that  _wouldn't be missed_ . Seriously, though, could you really blame a guy for smiling back?

He shook his head and hooked his laptop back up at his desk, heaving a sigh of satisfaction when it connected to the internet. Aunt Agatha spent most days volunteering at the local cat shelter and 'didn't believe' in computers, and seriously, how was that even a thing that people said? He'd spent the week leeching painfully slow wifi from her neighbors and enduring her clucks of disapproval every time he so much as opened the cover. Stiles shuddered. It had been a long five days.

Still, it wasn't as though he had many other opportunities for a vacation, and when she and his father had conspired to drag him away from Beacon Hills for a week, he'd really only considered two factors: one, the proximity of her quirky little cottage to the beach, and two, the pictures she still kept of his mother. Agatha had been older than his mom by nearly ten years, but she'd loved her little sister dearly. After the funeral, his father had packed away pretty much every reminder, every memento with the exception of one photo that never left his bedside table. Stiles had pilfered a few over the years, coming across them in various boxes while digging for Halloween decorations or Christmas lights and hoarded them inside various books in his room. Still, it was never the same as seeing them on the walls and the mantle, the way they used to be. It had rained his first day at the cottage, and he'd spent hours just wandering around, picking up photographs frame by frame, watching his mother smile back at him from grade school through her wedding day. It was an aching sort of comfort, and he'd been glad when the weather cleared enough to get out of the house for a while.

Stiles shook his head, returning to the present and the unanswered questions plaguing his brain. He started out by typing 'mermaids' into his browser's search bar, but after page after page of Disney fanart and retouched photos from Barnum and Bailey's, he gave up and started thinking more creatively. 'Siren' turned up nothing useful (Amy hadn't had wings, nor had he ever heard her sing). A link from another page led him to selkies, who depending on the source were either Icelandic shapeshifters who turned into seals or smoldering men posed against a seascape for cheap paranormal romance covers. Amy had  _definitely_ not been either one of those. Eventually he just gave up and typed in 'Pacific Northwest Fish Monsters' and somehow, in the mishmash of pages that brought up, he sniffed out a trail.

Ningyo, he found first, and then, more specifically, amahiko. Neither description was precisely correct, but then again, legends were never what you expected when you met them in the flesh.

The fact that he could even make that statement caused Stiles to take a moment and seriously reevaluate his life choices. Either way, the options on his screen were more fish than mermaid, but typically not dangerous to the casual beach goer. Great. It was just  _him_ then, monster magnet Stiles Stilinski. The fact that both creatures hailed from across the Pacific ocean and were not at all native to Oregon still did little to ease his mind. The Argents were technically native to France, if you went back far enough, and yet here they were, settled in Beacon Hills. He supposed the comparison was a little unfair, but hey, he'd actually met Allison's mother and was still terrified of her, even from beyond the grave.

Wait a minute – that first day, where had Amy said she'd moved from? Willapa Bay? A quick googling revealed – surprise – not an actual town, but a wildlife refuge in a sea-sheltered estuary. Maybe she'd outgrown the tide pool and decided to move on to a larger hunting ground. Or maybe she'd just overstayed her welcome and the locals had caught her chowing down on their oyster beds and chased her out. More power to them, he thought, except she'd worked her way down to Beaver Lick instead and found an easier target.  _Him_ .

The sun was nearly up by the time he'd reached his half-formed conclusions, and Stiles threw himself back into the shower, still trying to scrub the nightmare from his skin. The rhythmic pounding of the water flung him back into that moment on the beach, just before sundown, when Amy had shown up just as he was shaking the accumulated sand from his towel. Who was he to refuse an evening swim with a girl that hot? A girl in a shiny silver bikini, black hair tangled around her shoulders, grinning from ear to ear? Grinning at him. At  _Stiles_ , the way girls never smiled at him back home.

So he'd followed her into the unbelievably cold water, not about to be beaten down by her mocking taunts about his athletic prowess as she led him to her favorite spot. A hidden cove, nestled up against the bay, where she claimed you could catch an unparalleled view of the sunset. Stiles was hoping to catch a little bit more than that, to be honest, but what he ended up catching instead was a glimpse of the most terrifying thing he'd seen since being stalked by an alpha werewolf. In the dark. Through the corridors of an empty high school. He reached to turn off the water in the shower and found that his hands were shaking.

 

Once he'd managed to dress himself (and he was giving himself points for that today, he decided), Stiles let the smell of bacon and eggs on the stove lure him downstairs. “Hey champ,” his dad threw over his shoulder, throwing far more salt and pepper into the pan than were strictly necessary. “Thought you might want some breakfast before I head out.”

“You thought correctly,” Stiles answered, hovering around the stove. He popped two slices of bread into the toaster and returned to staring at the twin frying pans. “I think,” he said, “in the interest of keeping you on a healthy diet, you should relinquish the bacon into my custody.”

“Oh, is that what you think?” his father asked with a smile, sliding two eggs over easy onto a plate and adding several strips of bacon. “Well, for your information, this is turkey bacon, so your devious and extremely obvious plot against my taste buds has been foiled.”

“For now,” Stiles admitted, grabbing the bread as it popped out of the toaster and slathering it with low-fat butter substitute.

“I spoke with Agatha this morning,” his father offered as he sat down at the table.

“Oh?” Stiles asked nervously around a mouthful of bread.

“Yeah,” the Sheriff continued. “She seemed a little offended that you 'took off like a thief in the night,' as she put it.” Stiles grimaced. “You didn't, did you?” his father asked. “Steal anything, from her, I mean?”

Stiles choked on a chunk of turkey bacon, thinking about the photograph of his mother at her high school graduation, all 80's hair and blue eye shadow and absolutely perfect. “Are you kidding me?” he protested as loudly as possible. “That woman has cross-stitch seashells on every thing that's not already covered in quilts or cat fur.” He reasoned it wasn't precisely a lie if he didn't actually answer the question.

“That's what I thought,” his father said, only a hint of wariness left in his tone. “She also mentioned that you'd been spending time with a local girl -”

Stiles nearly sprayed orange juice across the kitchen. “Dad,” he begged. “Dad, please, for the love of cheeseburgers and barbecued ribs and everything you hold dear, can we not have this conversation? Preferably ever?”

The Sheriff chuckled, bending his head over his plate. “Nothing wrong with a little summer romance,” he assured Stiles. “I just wanted to make sure you two were, you know, safe about it. That's all.”

“Oh my God,” Stiles wailed, chucking his empty plate into the dishwasher and downing the last of his juice. He grabbed his keys from the hook on the wall near the door and nearly sprinted into the front hallway. “I'm just going to – I told Scott that I'd – I'll be back later!”

“Nice to see you too, son,” his father called back as the front door slammed shut.

Stiles wasn't really sure how it happened, but instead of ending up at the McCall's place, his Jeep took a turn for the old Hale house instead. He figured Scott would most likely be there anyway, assuming he was even awake. And if he was there, he would be sparring with Isaac or picking out paint chips for their new room so they could put in bunk beds and live happily ever after as long lost brothers or something. Stiles shook his head. He shouldn't be jealous. It wasn't like Scott had never had any other friends. It was just that, well, Stiles actually hadn't, and this was taking some getting used to.

Erica answered the door in her bathrobe, wiping the sleep from her eyes. “What the hell are you doing here so early?” she asked, squinting into the sunlight. “And why do you smell funny?”

Stiles pushed past her into the house, ignoring her first question and spouting back “I do not smell funny!” to the second. He doubted she'd ever heard of a sea-going, man-eating monster that liked to masquerade as a quirky-hot Oregonian, but there was a chance Derek had. A small chance, sure, but that was better than what little he'd been able to squeeze out of google.

“Derek's in the kitchen,” she muttered without being asked, and stumbled back up the stairs. Stiles gaped after her for a moment, wondering if mind-reading was a skill werewolves developed after a while. God, he sure hoped not. He'd have to move to another state and disassociate with the lot of them.

The new kitchen was at the back of the house, and he expected to find Derek still painting the walls or filling in the tile floor. What he did not expect was to be grabbed roughly by the back of the neck and pushed hard against the stainless steel island in the center. Derek crowded into his personal space, a confused and altogether unpleasant look on his face as he sniffed – actually sniffed Stiles up and down. “Um,” Stiles protested, or attempted to through his brain's sudden paralysis.

“You smell wrong,” Derek accused, forgoing an apology in favor of simple rudeness. “It's all over you, every inch of you. It's _wrong_.” His eyes gleamed and Stiles saw the points of Derek's teeth extend over his lips. Stiles wasn't sure what he's been expecting when he came here, but it sure as hell wasn't _this_.

“Dude,” Stiles managed. “I have taken three showers in the last twenty-four hours. If that's not good enough for you, then you're going to have to start paying my water bills. And you're no model of cleanliness yourself, I mean what even is that on your arms?”

“Engine grease,” Derek responded distractedly, wrinkling his nose, and ok, so that was actually a perfectly normal state of affairs for him. If his head wasn't stuck under the hood of that Camaro, he was busy shoring up the drywall or clearing out the cobwebs from beneath the stairs or some other industrious household project. The day he had come down from the attic, pink tufts of insulation clinging to the spikes of his hair stood out as one of Stiles' absolute favorite days in the history of human civilisation. Derek hadn't bothered to glance in a mirror for at least six or seven hours and no one, not a single member of his oh-so-loyal pack had decided to congratulate him on his new fashion statement. Stiles was considering making it an annual holiday with pink frosted cake and everything. What? He liked to live dangerously.

“Where have you been?” Derek asked, looking like he really, really wanted to hold his nose, and ok that was just insulting.

“My aunt's house in Oregon,” Stiles sighed. “I told you that, like, two weeks ago. Some of us are allowed to take vacations, ok?”

“That still doesn't explain why you smell like a fishwife,” Derek complained.

“Excuse me?” Stiles blustered. “Did you just call me what I think you just called me?”

“Did you just fall into a barrel of rotting tuna?” Derek countered. “Because that's what you smell like right now.” Stiles attempted to squeeze his way out from between Derek and the butcher's block, but failed. Derek pinned him in with an arm to either side and stared him down, looking unhappier by the second. “Where in Oregon?” he pestered.

Stiles cut his eyes to one side. “Beaver Lick,” he admitted. “It's this stupid little cove just north of -”

“Beaver Lick?” Derek asked. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Stiles answered. “And no, I don't want to know anything about how it got its name, all right? But my aunt's lived there since she retired with all six of her cats, god only knows why, and in all that time I've never seen anything like -” he stopped, the air suddenly fleeing his lungs.

“Anything like what?” Derek asked slowly, giving Stiles a fraction more breathing room.

“I'd say you wouldn't believe me,” Stiles began, nervous laughter bubbling up from his throat. “But actually, you're probably the only one who would.”

“Go on,” Derek encouraged, nudging at the side of Stiles' neck with his nose, and yes, ok, Stiles knew that was just something werewolves did, or at least something Derek did, but that didn't make it any less unnerving. He was never going to get used to this whole scenting business, even if secretly, sometimes, he kind of liked it.

“I met this girl,” Stiles began, and was Derek seriously growling right now? He was growling. Right underneath Stiles' ear, great, this day couldn't possibly get any better. “ -on the beach,” he continued, as if this were perfectly normal behavior, “and you know, we hung out, we talked, we went swimming -” the growling grew louder and Stiles pushed back against Derek's chest. “Do I have to go out and get the newspaper and smack you on the nose with it?” he asked. “I am telling you a story, here.”

“Dog jokes?” Derek asked, pulling back but looking furious, nonetheless. “Not really helping your case right now, Stiles.”

“Oh, what, so now I'm not allowed to make friends outside the pack? Is that what this is about?” Stiles stared back at him, arms folded across his chest.

“Why don't you invite her over for dinner and we'll see,” Derek said with the fakest of fake smiles, letting his teeth make the point for him.

“Yeah, well, that would be pretty difficult considering she tried to eat my face off,” Stiles confessed. “When that didn't work, she tried drowning me, but I brained her with a rock and managed to dog paddle my way back to land.” He looked down at his feet. “I, uh, packed up my stuff and fled the state pretty soon after that, so. Anyhow. That's how I spent my summer vacation.” He spread his arms wide in an exaggerated shrug, trying to downplay his abject terror.

Derek's face remained stony, but his eyes had gone wide and roving. At some point while Stiles was babbling, he'd decided to clench his fist in Stiles' t-shirt and he knew better than to attempt to dislodge a locked-on werewolf. From experience, no less.

“Sea-hag,” Derek mumbled under his breath, and of course he knew immediately what to call it. “Why would there be hags in Oregon?”

“Why are your claws ripping holes in my shirt?” Stiles countered, maintaining a surprisingly polite tone.

Derek glanced down at the mess he'd made of Stiles' t-shirt, four small gouges scored across the ruined bat symbol. He uncurled his fist with obvious effort and took a step back.

“I've had that shirt since fifth grade,” Stiles muttered. “So thanks for that. You know, all I wanted was a week away from all this. Just one week to be a normal guy, catching up on some normal reading, and then I meet a perfectly normal girl who actually seems interested in me for once, not Scott, not Jackson, but _me_ , professional screw-up Stilinski, except she doesn't know me from Adam. Except maybe she did, maybe she could sniff out losers and that's why she picked me, easy target and all. 'Cause then she had to go and turn out to be some kind of man-eating mermaid from hell -”

"Sea-hag,” Derek repeated, attempting to interrupt. “Leave it to you to find one south of Alaska.”

“ - and I couldn't even put her out of my misery.” Stiles continued, oblivious, and sank down to the floor with a sigh, his back to the island. “She's still out there somewhere, looking for her next meal, and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop her.”

Derek looked away, letting Stiles' rant sink in. “You never wanted this life,” he said quietly, like a punch to the gut. “You shouldn't have to deal with our problems.” Stiles heard what he didn't say, heard  _And you never wanted me_ in the silence.

“That's what you took from this conversation?” Stiles threw back in disbelief. “Because that is totally not what I meant,” Stiles apologised, sort-of, if one could apologise and still be angry. “I get shipped off to the middle of nowhere and nearly get eaten by Ursula the Sea Witch and where do I end up? Right back here.” He spent a moment watching Derek's jaw twitch in profile. “You may have noticed by now that morbid curiosity is kind of one of my defining traits.” He winced, realising that as usual, he had chosen the worst possible words to express what he meant.

“So that's why you're here?” Derek asked angrily. “Some sort of sick fascination? You get off on playing tag-a-long?”

“No!” Stiles exclaimed. “I mean, yeah, maybe, at first. It was nice to think I was actually useful, you know, that I could help for a change instead of just ruining everything I touched. You know, if I hadn't dragged Scott out into the woods that night, he never would have been bitten in the first place, and if you think that doesn't keep me up at night, you're wrong.” Stiles felt the cliff giving way beneath his feet as the conversation completely got away from him.

“So it's just guilt,” Derek responded, his fists clenching up again at his sides.

“Oh for the love of -” Stiles bit down on his lip, hard. “Look, if I hadn't spent the past year with you idiots, I'd probably be dead right now. I would have completely lost my shit out there in the water and made a tasty meal for that – that – _thing_.” He shuddered at the thought of slipping beneath the cold, cold waves, being slowly dragged down into the depths by clawed and scaly hands. The screech of razor sharp teeth against bone echoed in his mind and the shudder turned into a helpless shaking that racked his entire body. “They never would have found me, and I'd be just another missing kid that nobody looked for, presumed dead.” His voice wavered and Derek's fists uncurled, his head bowed. He settled in on the floor next to Stiles, pressing warm against his side. Stiles leaned into him, just a little, just to make the shaking stop.

“I would have looked for you,” Derek assured him, quietly, resting his chin atop Stiles' head. “I would have looked until I found you and then I would have ripped that sea-hags' fins off, slowly, one at a time until she died screaming.” Stiles knew that such a casual description of wanton violence should have worried him, but he found himself grateful, nonetheless. “And you're not useless,” Derek offered, turning back to stare at the cabinets. “I've never thought that. You saved my life, remember?”

Stiles nodded, remembering another uncomfortable fight to stay afloat, to stay alive, in the face of frankly depressing odds. He'd managed to come out of that one mostly intact, though admittedly, he still had nightmares about sinking below the water's edge. About failing, watching Derek sink to the bottom of the pool and never making it back to the surface.

“For what it's worth, I'm sorry. If you hadn't smelled like me,” Derek admitted regretfully, “she probably never would have gone after you in the first place. Hags are scavengers, and thieves besides. They can't resist taking what doesn't belong to them.”

Definitely the oyster beds, then, Stiles thought, dizzily, deciding on what had lead to Amy – no, the  _sea-hag's_ exit from Wallapa Bay. But then - “Wait, I smell like you?” Stiles asked cautiously, tilting his head to watch Derek's face. This was new information, and more than passing strange.

“You're supposed to,” Derek insisted, a growl creeping into his voice over the last syllable. His eyes glowed red for a brief moment, and Stiles realised he wasn't shaking anymore.

“Does – does everyone smell like you?” Stiles asked, knowing that he was pushing a dangerous subject but unable to stop his voice. “The pack, I mean, because you're the Alpha? And – and me too, because I've got this death wish and keep finding myself in the middle of your lycanthropic shenanigans?”

Derek didn't answer, and Stiles elbowed him in the side. “No,” he said, finally, a hint of irritation behind his words. “All wolves have their own scent. With humans, it's not as strong, and besides, I -” he hesitated, staring at his hands. “When I said she wanted to take what didn't belong to her. I meant.” He stopped, glancing away toward the newly intact windows. “I never wanted you to get hurt,” Derek continued, changing lanes to a different side of the conversation. “Not because of me.”

“Hey,” Stiles said gently. “I've made it this far, right? Who needs normal, anyway?” Derek looked back at him, the suspicion guarding his features slowly shifting to something else, something unrecognisable. “So,” Stiles continued nervously. “Assuming I wanted to stop smelling like the bargain bin at the fish market, ah, how exactly would I go about fixing that?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Derek's mouth, and Stiles knew he was in trouble. “Stay here,” Derek commanded, and rose to his feet, disappearing through the kitchen doorway. Stiles stood up, still a bit shaky, and held onto the steel counter top. His knuckles were white where he gripped the edge, and he counted backwards slowly from ten, willing himself to stop feeling the endless pull of the tide against his skin.

Derek came back a few moments later, holding a lump of black cloth in his hands. He held it out to Stiles before reconsidering, walking around the island. He closed in, hands suddenly at Stiles' waist, lifting and tugging at the damaged shirt. Stiles' breath caught in his throat, and he knew he should say something, wanted to say something but all that came out was an embarrassing squeak. Derek lifted the shirt over his head, fingers trailing against Stiles' sides along the way. Stiles swallowed hard, shivering now for an entirely different reason.

Derek picked up the t-shirt he'd brought down and held it out to Stiles, who closed his eyes, sucked in his lips and held his hands up over his head. Derek smirked and slid the shirt down over his frame, smoothing out the wrinkles in the sleeves and sides. It was soft in the way of that favorite shirt that's been through the wash a hundred times, fraying slightly around the edges, but nevertheless been held on to through the years. A slight hint of smoke lingered in the fabric and Stiles knew,  _knew_ Derek had just given him something that had survived the fire.

He was so far from processing that, he just looked down instead at the shirt that fit him surprisingly well. A faded red 'X' inside a circle adorned the front, and he laughed out loud. “Trading me Marvel for DC? That's just cold.” Derek's eyes narrowed and Stiles leaned back against the island, grinning. He poked a finger at Derek's chest. “I knew you were a dork in high school.”

Derek smiled, scratching the back of his head and were they flirting? Oh my god, Stiles thought. Twenty four hours ago he could have been  _dead_ and now he was flirting with Derek Hale in his half-finished kitchen. He supposed there was something to be said for near-death experiences.

“Yeah, actually,” Derek replied. “You got me there.” And Stiles got it, he really did. Derek must have felt like a mutant through most of his school career. He wondered if he'd ever gotten the chance to finish high school, wondered if he'd even been able to take any college classes after he left Beacon Hills. He wondered what Derek might have wanted to be when he grew up, instead of a wayward Alpha struggling to find a new family any way he could. Stiles realised suddenly that there was so much more he wanted to know about Derek, so much behind that closed and stony facade that he worked so hard to keep up and wondered if he might ever worm his way far enough inside to find out.

Derek watched the thoughts flickering across Stiles' face as if he could read that curiousity for what it was. Hell, maybe he could. His smile changed shape, just slightly, as he looked at Stiles - the way Stiles thought he might look when he finally secured the last piece to a particularly difficult puzzle. It was possessive but somehow fond, and Stiles knew he should find that disconcerting. He didn't.

“So...” Stiles fidgeted with the hem of his new shirt. “You think this'll do the trick?”

“I think you should probably sleep in it,” Derek suggested, the gleam in his eyes hinting at some sort of inside joke he obviously thought Stiles would pick up on. And oh, really, he did, and for the third time in as many days, Stiles wondered just how this was actually his life. “I could always help things along a little, if you'd like.” Derek continued, moving in close enough to brush Stiles' sneakers with his boots.

“It's not just a death wish, you know,” Stiles found himself babbling, his brain shouting at him to shut up, _shut up_ for god's sakes and just let this happen. If anything was going to happen. If he hadn't gone completely, off the deep end, nuts. “Or curiousity, not even the morbid kind. There's – there's other reasons I'm still here.”

“I know,” Derek answered, leaning in and smelling the edge of the fabric where it rested across Stiles' collarbone. He gave a small, contented sigh and licked gently at Stiles' skin, his tongue flicking out from between his lips to leave a spray of goosebumps in its wake. Stiles' hands gripped the edge of the counter and Derek gently pried them loose, settling them against his waist instead. Stiles dragged him closer, baring his throat to Derek's attentions and then froze, catching the sound of footsteps in the doorway.

“Go out for breakfast,” Derek ordered, lifting his head to stare Isaac down where he stood paralysed in the entryway. “All of you.” Isaac nearly tripped over his own feet backing up, and Stiles heard his feet clamoring up the stairs.

“So does that mean you want me all to yourself?” Stiles questioned, the sauciness of the inquiry nearly lost to his breathless tone.

Derek pressed a kiss beneath his ear, sliding his lips down Stiles' jawline and Stiles' hands moved restlessly, slipping beneath Derek's shirt. He turned his head to catch Derek's mouth against his own, sending an electric frission down his spine. Derek shuddered against him, deepening the kiss and tugging a little at Stiles' bottom lip. They heard the slow creaking of feet against the stairs and a whispered “Erica – Erica, seriously, stop staring, come  _on -_ ” before the front door slid slowly shut and they were finally alone.

“Never wanted to share you,” Derek murmured against Stiles' lips. “Not with anyone, not ever.”

Stiles felt his face burn, but for once he didn't care. He was on solid ground for the first time in years, and he wasn't about to give this up. When Derek nudged him gently towards the door and out into the hallway, he didn't protest, trying to walk backwards but stopping every few feet to reconnect his lips with Derek's. He knew he was making noises, heard them as though from far away as Derek echoed them low in his throat.

Derek pressed him hard against the door frame behind the stairs, and  _of course_ , Stiles thought, of course Derek had taken the one bedroom downstairs. The better to protect the pack, if anything should find them here. One of Derek's hands stroked across his hip and over his stomach, the other braced against the wall beside Stiles' head. He pressed their foreheads together gently, pulling back from the longest kiss of Stiles' life and he whimpered a little at the separation.

“I could have lost you,” Derek murmured, sounding more than a little lost himself. “I missed you, missed your voice, missed the way you smell and if you hadn't come back, I don't know, I just – I don't know anymore.”

“I'm still here,” Stiles whispered, wrapping his arms around Derek's neck. “I'm not going anywhere.”

The wolves managed to occupy themselves elsewhere for most of the day, a courtesy for which Stiles found himself incredibly grateful. Derek hadn't been keen on letting him leave until his scent was familiar again, and he made a point of being extremely thorough. If anyone had told Stiles yesterday (or any day, for that matter) that he would have spent the afternoon fooling around with Derek Hale, he would have laughed in their face. And yet here he was, curled up on his side in his boxers and a borrowed t-shirt, Derek wrapped protectively around him, late afternoon sunlight spilling bright and warm across the bed.

“I should go,” Stiles mumbled, even though that was the last thing in the world he wanted.

“Mmph,” Derek grunted against his neck. “You should stay.”

Stiles snuggled back against him, threading his fingers through Derek's where they rested against his hip. “As awesome as that sounds, someone needs to cook dinner for my dad. I think he lived off of frozen pizzas and fried chicken while I was gone.” Stiles shook his head. “If I don't think of his arteries, no one will.”

Stiles could feel Derek's lips curl into a smile against his skin. “You're a good person,” he mumbled. “But I still want to keep you.”

“Hey,” Stiles countered, rolling over to face Derek across the pillows. “There's definitely keeping going on here.” He rubbed his fingers absently over the mark Derek had left on his shoulder, just below the line of his t-shirt. Stiles felt like he had been claimed, as if the giant 'eat me' sign on his back had been replaced by a smaller, but no less important tattoo reading 'property of Derek Hale.' If he'd thought about it, it might have occurred to Stiles to feel offended, but it wasn't as if he'd been complaining at the time. Or complaining now, for that matter. He felt warm down to the marrow of his bones, safe and still for the first time in weeks.

“Tomorrow?” Derek asked, his hand moving lazily up and down Stiles' side. “I hooked up the fridge. There's even food in it.”

Stiles gave a short laugh and leaned in for a kiss, soft and quick. At least, it was supposed to be quick. By the time he'd disentangled himself from Derek's roving hands and tongue, he could have been parking the Jeep in his driveway. “You're incorrigible,” Stiles accused, still reluctant to move.

“Yeah,” Derek admitted. “But you love it.” His eyes flicked to Stiles' face, expression wary, as if he'd said something wrong.

Stiles shoved Derek over onto his back, some combination of surprise and reckless want allowing him to succeed. He pressed Derek's hands down against the bed, looking straight into his wide eyed expression of disbelief. “And don't you forget it,” Stiles replied, kissing him lightly, nipping at Derek's upper lip before sitting up and climbing off the bed. Derek didn't move, staring at Stiles as he fumbled his way back into his pants and sneakers. Stiles felt his eyes on his back as he left the room and smiled, rolling the edge of the t-shirt in his hands.

Stiles refused to think about it all the way home, what he'd done by putting Derek on his back and what it meant that Derek had let him do it. That was a conversation he and his brain would be hashing out later, much later if he could keep himself occupied until then. He pondered instead if there would be any vegetables left in the refrigerator that hadn't spoiled while he'd been gone. As he turned the key to the front door, his mind couldn't help but circle back around to the knowing smirk on Erica's face when she leaned over the porch railing and asked, ever so casually, when he was going to move in.    

**Author's Note:**

> This fic never would have made it to the internets without the mad beta skills of iliadawry and a helpful read-through from kitsunetam. Thank you both so much for putting up with me and my excessive googling throughout!


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